Experiences Tell us about some of your longest-running games!

[Meredith]

THE PREMISE
I'm thinking of beloved roleplays, in written format or tabletop, that have endured past their expected 'expiry date' (read: the banes of scheduling) and taken root in your heart. They can be finished or unfinished, comparatively long or short, plot-heavy or mostly character interaction. I'd love to hear about characters that have seen development over their course and who may have changed your perspective on the discipline, and/or the TLDRs of some campaign stories, especially from DMs!

REFLECTION SUGGESTIONS
What made the campaign so compelling to you? What attributes of the roleplay do you think contributed to its success? Do you think some settings are easier to play long-term than others? If the game is structured in external lore, like a tabletop setting book or a fandom game, do you think that makes it easier or harder to maintain? Is 'homebrew' or lore modification integral to the game's setting? Is there a difference in the longevity of your shorter and longer-post games? If there was a 'main character' in the party, was it you? Was the responsibility of social interaction more evenly spread? Are there any themes that you think are particularly enduring: concepts or story elements that you find specifically fulfilling to write that kept you in the game?

I'll draft up a couple of my own war stories in a bit! Don't feel obligated to answer all of the questions; they're just suggestions to prompt some creative thought.

 

[nerdy tangents]

So my two longest running groups actually had a lot in common with each other.

First and foremost there was a relatively small core group of players that kept things going via an active chat group (basically discord before the site existed).

The plot was also extremely simple and had a lot of room for players to embellish their own ideas. One was an X-Men school RP and another was about the animals at the San Diego Zoo turning into humans at night.

I think what made them fun was that no one took themselves or the roleplays seriously. It was just non-stop shenanigans and bouncing forward in time as needed to keep things fresh.

In the X-men one the GM disappeared for months at a time and the pre-discord group chat just kept things goin without her. In the Zoo one the GM was pretty happy to just run along with shenanigans in and out of the roleplay.

They weren’t perfect (there was a lot of weird porn sub-plots in the Zoo one and the X-Men one could get a bit passive aggressive in the chat).

But overall they were incredibly enjoyable.

** the closest experience I have had in 1x1 shared the simple premise (this one just a witch and siren kinda hanging out) and also played heavily with random shenanigans. It lasted a few months which is longer than most of my 1x1s. **

 

[Jannah]

The series of Hunger Games 1x1's I did with one partner years ago. We were both super into the series and this was around the time the movies were coming out, like 2013-2014, somewhere around there. We started out doing one which was pretty similar to the first book. We played out everything right from the Reaping all the way up to the end of the Victory Tour. Going in we had no idea whose character was going to die so at the end we flipped a coin, which we also incorporated in character as one of the characters had an old coin as her District token. I ended up losing that coin toss so my character was mercy killed by my partner's character. We ended up enjoying the RP so much that we did a sequel and a bunch more sequels after that. In each subsequent RP characters from the previous RP's would occasionally make appearances. We would also switch up whose character died each time (loser would control all the NPC characters from that point onwards).

Anyway, we wanted to keep going but real life eventually got in the way for both of us. We left off on a RP about District 3 Tributes as we would switch up the District each time too. I think my favourite was District 8 with my rebel girl whose Reaping was rigged. She eventually figured it out too and basically sacrificed her life so her weak and scrawny partner could make it home. Because we had established our pattern after the first installement we were able to write our later stories based around already knowing for certain who was gonna die. I loved the idea of a doomed rebel beating the Capitol at their own game and doing everything to let her own District partner win. That character also swore like a sailor, which added some rather colourful dialogue. Additionally, she was a lesbian and her girlfriend was made an Avox by the Capitol due to her partner's antics in and out of the arena.

 

[Sir Les Paul]

A little stretch on the notion of "expiry date", but the Soul Eater RP I co-GM might just fit right in. As we all know, no plan survives the battlefield, and there are few literary warzones like RpN. Scheduling conflicts and differences of opinion can be the bane of many a good game. Factually, this RP is the "successor" to two others in the same vein by The Regal Rper , so that only goes to show how difficult the up-start can be.

Some facts. We do have a narrative "endgame" so to speak, so our goal is to detail out how we're getting there. The game hardly reached that point, so why compare this to an expiration date? Well, pretty simple. It's a Soul Eater AU. They pop up fairly often, all face similar issues, and not many last terribly long. And, it's hardly the fault of the GM. I believe Soul Eater as a universe has some inherently difficult challenges to overcome when turned into a play-by-post roleplay:

- The dynamic of Meister and Weapon created co-dependent pairs, putting posting restraints on individuals tied to another and creating situation that essentially lock someone into a long-time writing partner. Arguably, this is the biggest issue with the fandom as is.
- Groups tend to get larger, even when you want them to be small. Even if all "pairs" are truly only two people (not always the case in the AU), this means even a small group of just a few pairs can suddenly go from 3-4 to 6-8. It's just plain a lot more difficult to have more players.
- There is a lot of comedy and specific acts in the art style of Soul Eater that just doesn't translate well--at least in my opinion--to a play-by-post roleplay. This can leave the atmosphere not feeling very "Soul Eater" like.
- Huge difference in anime and manga. Not uncommon, but enough it can entirely change the lore. Especially for anime-only watchers.
- There really isn't a concrete scaling to power in this AU. The manga end results essentially end up with characters having reality-bending toon force.
- The fandom has been done to death which makes standing out pretty hard.​

So, the fandom in just naturally hard to make into a Soul Eater game, and the list I mentioned above is what I would call my "slimmed down, less opinionated" reasons for it. The point is, the vibe I've gotten from people in this fandom is that most don't really expect Soul Eater games to last. In that sense, I'd say we're well past the expiration date on the standard expectations for the game. But, it's not just the standards. Our game has a few more things that one might normally expect to shorten the lifespan of a game:

- A ton of extra lore that adds sixty-some-odd years of history.
- We fleshed out basically the whole power system to "standardize" it a bit, be it Magic or other combat stuff.
- The game isn't just an "academy" style game anymore. It's centered around a bunch of dysfunctional adult agents getting a second chance in the field. Side note: believe it or not, this has actually been one of the most difficult recurring things to keep going when making characters.
- Entirely new plotlines and antagonists and no real use of many canon characters (turn off to some, I believe)
- Fairly strict guidelines for getting a character in: history, powers, unique traits, keeping to a theme.
- A big departure from the Soul Eater canon: we don't do heavy ability/trait stacking which is literally what the MC is all about.
- Not only is the overall power level of the game toned down, but ability sets (especially for the lower levels) are pretty standard. The way characters are unique is rarely if ever a raw power up, it's all about what you specialize in.​

It's not hard to argue that those things could against us. In a fandom with wacky, zany abilities at times and some incredibly creative concepts based on all things spooky, standardizing things, toning them down, and just plain making it seem more like a "pick your stat distribution" system does hurt the vibe. The world itself is also quite a bit different than canon, which is hit or miss most of the time with players. Academy style games are system, easier to run. More character diversity that's a lot easier to pull off. All stacked with the fact that Soul Eater just at its base isn't super easy to run. When the first lore pages and interest checks were made, I certainly didn't expect the flood of interest we received. I wouldn't have been surprised if we only had a handful of close friends making it to that first page.

But, here I stand corrected.

If roleplays were like formulas, I thought we had the makings for a small game of a few people in a niche twist on a fandom. I couldn't be more happy to be wrong.



So, Reflections?

Well, first of all, I can say that sometimes, you defy expectations in completely unexpected ways. It's not exactly a secret that I attempted to make Witches/Magic Users a little difficult to make because we didn't want to deal with them. We wanted to focus mostly on Meisters and Weapons. Yet, one of our most active groups is in fact a full magic group. Why? Because when roleplayers want to, they will find a way, and they will make it work--even when the odds are a bit against them.

For all of the hurdles it took in the beginning, we've completed arcs, had character growth, and we're still going strong. And, important to that, is we got that far preserving the balance we aimed for in the beginning and the themes we wanted. We did not want Soul Eater to yet again turned into a magic academy style game or a power fantasy with ungodly amounts of trait stacking or leaps in logic to make happen. We didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of waiting and waiting and waiting to make just one thing happen. We stuck to our guns and made it out with something we wanted and something it seems the majority of the roleplayers wanted, too. Keeping to our vision, I think, did a lot more than we expected.

There are some nice side-effects of the toned down power and standardization. With few if any direct stand-outs, the cast seems fairly balanced and unique across the board. No one really has MC syndrome, and if so, it's not for long. Everyone gets a chance in the spotlight. Whether it's due to some unique ability they have or just them being an asshole (this happens a fair amount). We also have characters doing plenty of collabs and one off posts for events not directly related to the plot, but adding layers of character depth due to them. Hell, we even have characters in the roster at this point primarily dedicated to those one offs.

Something I find important as far as I can go back is communication. Making sure messages get out, everyone is on the same board, players are asked questions, and even drawing leadership internally from the roster. Feedback has been great, and when you answer feedback by actually doing something about it--even if it's not immediate--the response is generally overwhelmingly positive. This is one of those "well, duh" and less surprising things, I guess, but just how much I look back and find that talking about something has either acknowledged and even at times resolved an issue makes it something I think we should all work on.

What makes the "campaign" compelling to me is that while we do in fact have an end game--so there is always a goal or sub-goals in sight--we decide how we get there. We decide how long it takes. Characters aren't these open and closed books of fulfillment, they're made to be these ongoing, interactive people existing in this story. Early, middle, late; introduction, rising action, climax. It doesn't matter. They have a place here and how they change and grow and react is what appeals to me. I may get to design the antagonistic forces and make the structure, but I'm not truly puppeteering the story. The players are. Sometimes proactively, but even if it's reactively--the game has to adjust to reactions, too.

I've listed some things that I believe that have contributed to the "success", but honestly, it comes down to the people you play with. I've found an incredible group of active, creative players I couldn't be more thankful for. We may bicker at times, sometimes creative differences cause some friction, but at the end of the day, I think we all care about what we have going on. I think even at our most frustrated times, it's not always a personal blow to an ego. I think it's genuine concern for a game we've played for longer than quite a few in a fandom that doesn't always make it far, and we all just want what's best for it. Whatever we can do to keep it going. A GM can do a lot, but the players are the ultimate deciding factor for the fate of a game.

Short answer: I believe whole-heartedly some settings are easier to play than others.

Longer answer: As the game I'm referring to is an AU Fandom, it is structured around existing lore and even has some OC lore built around it that kinda needs ingested before you even start. I've encountered issues with people not being familiar with the fandom, anime/manga differences, then of course the length of our own lore. It's probably harder to maintain than just one source, but it does give some advantages: some people enjoy reading the take on the future of the fandom, and it gives us as GM's more control over how events and abilities are portrayed in the IC. So, sure, there's a bit more to maintain, but there's also a pay-off to it.

We're not really in a post-game and I have no idea how we'll handle that if we truly get to it. I believe we're well beyond expectations as is, so we're just handling it one post at a time.

Social interaction is what players make it. We have some more reserved characters that shine in the smaller groups, especially during the one-offs. We have some whose abrasive personalities can at times dominate entire scenes. We have some that just clash entirely and creative some more chaotic scenes. Sometimes, there is order. Often, there is chaos. And, most characters can make use of that any time they see fit with their characters. The main point is that characters aren't really locked out of interacting at any given time. It's the choice of the player when to have a surge in interaction with a character, and how that fits into the story. I mentioned before that there isn't really a "main character" here, and I think that lends to the strength of these interactions. Given most of the characters are intentionally dysfunctional in some way, pretty much no one is ever really "right"; so, it's just a sea of grey in more shades than hex code can generate.



In general, I've played a few games passed their actual intended end. What kept me around is one of two things: enjoying the character I played, or tying up loose ends left in the main story. The "true end" of a story is not just one thing; one story may end with a central plot, but one story may end when the last letter for that character is written. I think what matters most, especially when you keep a story ongoing, is to find a cathartic end. If a character is to end and it feel satisfying, those final moments of severed connection need to be beautiful. Some people love to end with a yarnball of plot and a maelstrom of emotion for a character, making them feel real and alive just like how in real life, we always have something going on. And, that can be a great ending for the reader. My most satisfying character and story conclusions, however, come from well-executed catharsis. We roleplayers rarely get to see the end of a story, so perhaps we aren't as well-versed in that skill as we would like to be. But, if you can pull it off, few things in the world of roleplaying really compare. At least, in my opinion.

-- Your humble supporter, the Duke of Chords, Sir Les Paul

 

[Walliver]

Well, I wouldn’t say that the rp itself was particularly long running, but what was truly astounding was the fact that it could be picked up over and over again.

It was a 1x1 between myself and possibly one of the most fabulous writers of our time cuzn
Despite month long breaks, conflicting lore (on my part), impatience (also on my part), and quite the writing journey, it ran for quite a while. Tracking the OOC, it ran for almost an entire year.

Though it eventually fizzled out (upon its much improved revival), I enjoyed it greatly and have become a better writer because of it.